No Charity Without Prosperity

I took an opportunity yesterday to mention one of my all time favorite quotations to one of the priests at our church. It is from Edmund Burke...

"A loosening of Morals leads to a hardening of hearts."

Father recognized the quote and agreed with me that the thought was great but then casually tossed out the sentence, "But didn't Burke contribute to that loosening of morals?"

Moved forward by the exiting crowd, I couldn't ask Father what he meant by that but I can only guess that Burke's justifications of Capitalism might be it.

The association of materialism with Capitalism is justified but believing materialism is in itself bad demonstrably false.

After all, there can be no charity without prosperity.

Yes, the poor widow's sacrifice is far greater than the rich man's. Her gift is an example of faith, submission, and love for her fellow man and God.

However, at the risk of being "tart", the rich man's gift will do more good for more people.

I feel good when I give to my Church. I know that a large portion of it goes to amazing charities and support groups locally and globally. When anyone gives anything to charity from canned food to old clothes to tithes, it an expression of love for others.

But compared to the other socialist, communist, or any non-capitalist societies on the planet, NO ONE gives more to charity than good-old-capitalist Americans.

You could combine all the charitable giving of all the other developed countries and Americans still give more.

It's not just that we are more religious (we are) but that we are wealthier.

And we are wealthier because of the freedom of Capitalism. Yes, Capitalism can be materialistic but when socialism takes over a formerly capitalist country, prosperity drops, charitable giving drops, and the government decides who gets what.

Giving doesn't have to be religious either. Secular giving is good too. (Although it does irk me that liberals seem to believe giving to the National Endowment of the Arts makes you a "sophisticate" but giving to the Church to feed the poor makes you a "right-wing extremist".)

All that said, you can't give what you don't have.

Capitalism enables charity. Socialism kills it. So with all due respect to Father, it is the people who use money for evil that are evil, not money itself.

A loosening of Morals does lead to a hardening of hearts. Burke's capitalism requires good behavior, responsible behavior. But neither Capitalism nor money itself are what harden hearts, that happens only when people loosen their morals and give up their personal responsibility to choose doing good over doing evil.

American exceptionalism stems from our blend of the freedom of the individual to pursue their own happiness with the knowledge that America is only successful when we are one people, under God, with liberty and justice for all.